Citation

Rossmo DK. Appl. Cogn. Psychol. 2005; 19(5): 651-654.

Copyright

(Copyright © 2005, John Wiley and Sons)

DOI

10.1002/acp.1144

PMID

unavailable

Abstract

Snook, Taylor, and Bennell, in 'Geographic profiling: The fast, frugal, and accurate way' (Applied Cognitive Psychology, January 2004, volume 18, pp. 105-121), suggest that by invoking two simple rules untrained individuals can perform geographic profiling tasks as accurately as sophisticated computer software. While the results are interesting in terms of geographic heuristics, the authors' reach conclusions unsupported by their data and methods. Though they claim to address 'the ongoing debate about whether individuals can perform as well as actuarial techniques when confronted with real world, consequential decisions,' their laboratory experiment bears little resemblance to the reality of criminal investigation. Major flaws exist with both data selection (the cases used may not have met the assumptions underlying geographic profiling, and they only involved a series of three locations, too low for pattern detection), and methods of analysis (nonlinear error was measured linearly, and computerized geographic profiling search strategies were distorted). Copyright © 2005 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

Language: en